In Google’s Backyard, Hackers Face Eviction

Hacker Dojo is filled with people expert in computer code, but building codes are another matter. A liberal interpretation of Mountain View’s permitting rules by its members could get the shared collaboration space shut down.

Built inside 13,000 square feet of abandoned warehouse space in the city home to Google, Hacker Dojo is given over to offices, events space, and social areas cobbled together helter skelter by the tinkerers — computer and otherwise — who pay Dojo membership dues. As far as the city is concerned, the Dojo is an office complex, which means it needs the fire exits, sprinklers, and wheelchair-accessible bathrooms that it currently lacks, Mountain View officials told the New York Times in an article published Thursday.

In response, Dojo organizers are frantically raising money to bring the space, which has never received a formal city permit, up to code. The Times coverage helped drive $12,000 in fresh donations so far today, to a total of $185,000 out of the $250,000 needed, says Katy Levinson, a robotics engineer and the Dojo’s development director.

Levinson says the city has been supportive in many ways, but struggled to fit the one-of-a-kind space into a zoning system that demands simple black-and-white classifications like “office,” “industrial,” “retail,” and “residential.” Even aesthetically, Hacker Dojo is anything but simple.

Inside, occupants are free to modify the space, which includes a wooden airplane someone hung from the ceiling, graffiti conversations on the walls, and office paint jobs, the design of which seem to be random at best. “The usage of our space shifts by the hour,” Levinson says. “It’s been an emergent experience and emergent culture. We tried from the beginning to have as few rules as possible and let the community evolve as it wanted to.”

The Dojo has doubled its membership each year since opening in September 2009 on International Talk Like a Pirate Day (appropriate, given the Dojo’s apparent outlaw status). That growth may have caught city officials off guard. Levinson says the city has been “distressed” by some of the Dojo’s larger classes and events, including a job fair that at peak saw 300 people inside the building at once. Mountain View bureaucrats aren’t the only ones surprised by Hacker Dojo’s growth spurt: Its creators were caught off guard too. “We were so sure we’d never make rent without subletting offices,” Levinson says, but as it turned out that wasn’t necessary. (Dojo’s own members don’t sublet but rather pay $100 monthly dues and grab space on a first-come, first-served basis.)

Dojo organizers are also surprised they haven’t needed to institute an application process. With donations to its code-compliance fund from 640 different backers, including Boing Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow, the anarchic workspace may be able to fend off the city. Whether it can retain its freewheeling spirit once it is officially classified as corporate office space remains to be seen.